Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic account against war..., May 3, 2001
I first read this book when I was 15 years old and had the opportunity again to read it recently (the illustrated edition). Although fictional, it is a classic account of the devastation and tragedy of World War I. It changed my whole outlook about war, and it succeeds again after all these years.Arguably the best anti-war novel of all time, it is told from the perspective of a young German soldier (Paul Baumer) who tells of his adventures with his classmates, their enlistment and experiences in the war. He describes how only in such terrible hardship and mind boggling terror can one attain real genuine comradeship. The book no doubt was excerpted from some of the war experiences of Remarque, who was drafted in 1916, wounded in 1917 and then saw no further action. Obviously appalled by the enormous loss of life and devastation, "Im Westen nichts Neues" was published in Germany in 1929--and became an instant best seller. Devoid of all romanticism, he describes in graphic and burning prose the tragedy of war where the individual could not surmount but be battered and eventually destroyed by blind and illogical hatred not of his own making. No wonder that Remarque became a 'persona non grata' in the Third Reich, for the Nazis, true sons of the war were angered by Remarque's pacifism and anti-militarism, eventually stripping him of German citizenship. A book destined to be a classic, for sheer fascination it rivals the most thrilling modern novel, for it is readable, interesting, and easy to understand. And these are the very qualities which characterize classical books: simplicity, interest and readability.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Best Books Ever Written, December 28, 2001
This book puts a face on the enemy soldier. He is no longer just a rifle, a bayonet, a grenade, but a living breathing human being. The book is told from the perspective of a World War I German Soldier, and while you are reading it you can not help thinking how much he sounds just like any other 20 year old boy regardless of whether he is a German, American, French, Russian, or British soldier. As an American male, Germany was our enemy and was always looked upon as being evil. You are not supposed to think of these people as human beings. It would make fighting them that much harder to learn that their foot soldiers really were not much different than ours. The fact that they had mothers, fathers, and loved ones at home praying for their safety, just as ours did, is moving.The book does not bother going into details of the cause of the war, which is good, but just focuses on the foot soldier who is actually fighting it. The book is fictitious, but it gives surprisingly accurate descriptions of the war, and gives you a good perspective of what they went through. This illustrated edition is great and helped clarify in my mind actually what was described in the book. You can also see hints of the feeling of the country preceding World War II. At the end of World War I, Germany was defeated, but their foot soldiers felt that they were not out classed, but only out manned. Also most of the fighting was done in other countries, so Germans were not subjected to images of giant craters which had ripped apart most of the landscape. Those at home in Germany suffered, but their elders were disillusioned regarding the superiority of their military might, and the consequences war was costing them. The prospective on the war propaganda is magnificent. Scenes of teachers instilling in their students the image that war is glorious and prompting them to rush out and enlist, only to find that war is hell, and death is all that awaits most of them is very powerful. Older gentleman in town arguing over how the war should be won, without any real concept of the consequences are great. Realistic problems which these youths suffered upon returning home from the war are also raised. It is mentioned of how this generation of Germans would have trouble fitting back into society because war was all they knew reminds me of our American soldiers returning from Vietnam. Both were at war for long periods of time and returned home from a losing war. I picked this book up because I saw it mentioned on a list of "The One Hundred Greatest Books Ever Written". After reading it, I believe they were justified in including it on that list. P.S. The movie was just as good.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most powerful book in the history of literature, July 24, 1999
By A Customer
I've just finished reading All Quiet On The Western Front. A book has never made me cry. But as i continued reading, getting deeper and deeper into the mind and soul of the narrator, deeper into the head of Paul Baumer, i felt his pain, his despair, his desperate attempt at clinging to a past that he has lost, his innocence, his youth... I saw the war through his eyes, felt his agony, his longing for an end to a war that knows no end. And i cried for Paul Baumer, a man of 20 who entered the war as a naive, almost 17 year old boy. By the time he was 20, he's seen and experienced things that would cause some to go mad... This incredible story of what's left of life in a mad struggle between life and death, as tolld by the Paul Baumer, touched and captivated me in ways i've never imagined. Remarque has created a masterpiece, and even though the characters are supposedly fictionary, it is a fact that there were millions of young men out there, just like Paul and his comrades, real people, soldiers that have gone through the same ordeals, same fears, same horrors, that makes the characters so real. This is the remarcable story of (as Remarque describes) "A Generation That Was Destroyed By The War"
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